Maniera transforms its gallery space into a bar

Following a period of limited (or no) social gatherings in 2020-2021, Maniera aims at bringing people together, thus enabling them to enjoy each other’s company. The solo exhibition by Belgian artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer is titled 1b (one bar), which is the abbreviation of the pressure measurement unit. One bar, a bar is 'displaced' and created in the setting of the furniture gallery. Dedobbeleer designed a composition with fourteen objects of various scales, transforming the gallery space into a bar that will be used every Friday night throughout the three-month duration of the exhibition.

For this show, Dedobbeleer was inspired by the modernism of the Austrian architect and designer Joseph Hoffman and by the legendary Cabaret Fledermaus bar he designed for the Wiener Werkstätte, a cooperative artistic workshop.

With Dedobbeleer’s furniture and objects, Maniera 25 introduces a set of pieces referring to a non-domestic interior in its entirety. Every piece contributes to the creation of this interior. The lamp at the counter and the standing light fixture whose lampshades are made of ordinary skirts utilised to fashion skirts soften the light source and give a friendly nod to Hermann Czech’s Palais Schwarzenberg interior refurbishment; a legendary project by the Austrian architect and realised during 1980s in the centre of Vienna.

Dedobbeleer's counter is a compact piece made of green concrete plywood plates with purple edges, which conveys a marble finish to the horizontal surface. The compactness of the furniture enables us to see it standing up straight as though it were a bar in an exuberant 1970s living room. Drawing its origins from the building trade, the curved frame provides the essential twist to the furniture. And while the marble is reminiscent of Adolf Loos’ small tables in Vienna’s Kärtner Bar (again), Dedobbeleer’s design escapes mimicry by giving the 1b table a complexity through the addition of standard, practical building material.

Two symmetrical large perforations radiate the charming presence of an illustrated ghost-like figure. The other chair stems from a process of deconstruction and is akin to an ordinary school chair. The blue MDF stool boasts a drop-shaped seat finished in marble and felt is here again framed by PVC tube, offering Maniera 25 yet another exciting new piece.A wall lamp made out of soldered bends is playfully reminiscent of a clown’s dubious face with its red light bulb fixed on a welded bend tube underneath. Numerous candle holders positioned on tables and welded by Dedobbeleer himself illuminate the bar with a softer light. Finally, the walls of the gallery are clad with a tall plinth made out of mirrored photographs depicting the pattern of a plate of marble.